


sweet / heart

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 21:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Gaara is only passingly familiar with the holiday customs of other villages, so he has little frame of reference when Lee is especially enthusiastic about a Valentine's Day visit.





	sweet / heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short and sweet little fluff piece that I banged out in a couple of hours. Unbeta'd, because I wanted to get it published before it stopped being Valentine's Day _everywhere_ (even if it's no longer Valentine's Day where I live). Also, I just realized this is the first time I've ever written something from Gaara's POV. Hope you enjoy!

“You’re going to be in Konoha on the fourteenth?” Lee’s voice crackles down the telephone line, a little faint, a little distorted, but as enthusiastic as always. 

“Yes?” Gaara says carefully. He’s unsure why he has to repeat himself. For all of Lee’s eccentricities, he is not a stupid man, and rarely requires information to be given to him a second time. 

“That’s Valentine’s Day!” 

“Yes...”

Gaara is peripherally aware of the holiday calendars of the other villages, inasmuch as he understands where they differ from Suna’s own. Primarily for diplomatic reasons - it’s important to know that all correspondence from Kumo goes unanswered in late spring because of their weeklong planting festival, for example - otherwise, he has little interest in the holiday customs of other nations.

“It will be our first Valentine’s Day together!” Lee exclaims.

Gaara is uncertain why this is particularly impactful. Lee might as well have said ‘This will be our first Sixth Daimyo’s birthday together!’ for all the meaning the words impart upon him. From Gaara’s perspective, the past nine months have been full of firsts: their first time holding hands, their first kiss, their first kiss _with tongue_ (so far, this has been Gaara’s favorite), their first time ‘being intimate together’ (This, Gaara has learned, is how Lee prefers to refer to sex, despite Gaara’s protests that much of what they have done together has been quite intimate. Lee finds the word ‘sex’ to be crass). 

There have been plenty of other first holidays, too: their first Christmas as a couple, during which Lee visited Suna, failed spectacularly at preparing fried chicken, and gifted Gaara with a multicolored sweater with real, jingling bells. Kankuro had declared it ‘tacky’ and Gaara had spitefully (and sweatily) worn it to the office every day for a week after Lee left (even though he didn’t particularly care for the color palette himself, and the bells had gotten annoying after a while). Gaara had gifted Lee with a large potted cactus in return, which Lee had impulsively thrown his arms around, puncturing himself in several places on his chest. That had led to another first: Gaara’s first time administering First Aid to a significant other. They’ve also shared a first New Year’s Eve together, though at a distance - Lee’s tearful voice over the phone, spanning the distance between their villages while fireworks burst and sparkled in the background. Lee tends to cry a lot, in general. It is a not-infrequently-uncomfortable experience for Gaara, who is never quite sure how to react. Lee calls them “tears of passion and joy”, which helps reassure him, at least a little, that he isn’t doing anything wrong. 

Instead of saying any of that, Gaara says, “Oh?” 

“It’s so romantic!” Lee barrels on. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I sound distracted - I have so many ideas!” 

Gaara hears the rustling of paper and the scratching of a pen in the background that means Lee must have pulled out one of his many notebooks and is writing something down. 

“It’s fine.”

“Oh, I could … ! Or … oh!” Lee starts muttering to himself excitedly. The scratching becomes louder and more furious. This typically means that Lee’s mind is working too fast for his mouth to keep up, but Gaara is happy to listen to him even if the conversation isn’t particularly stimulating. It’s nice - if he closes his eyes he can almost pretend Lee is in the same room with him, like they’re sharing a quiet evening at home together. 

His introspection is interrupted by the shrill buzzer warning them they have just a minute of call time remaining. With the phone system being so new, personal calls remain strictly regulated, even for Kage. 

“Oh darn it!” Lee says. This is about the closest he ever comes to cursing, another thing that Gaara finds unfailingly charming about him. “There’s barely any time... I still have so many questions! I’ll have to go quick. Say, Gaara, what’s your favorite food?”

“Gizzard,” Gaara replies. 

“That won’t work…” He hears Lee trailing off, pen scribbling all along. “What about a favorite flower?”

“I like cactuses.”

“No, that’s - “ Lee cuts himself off and Gaara hears paper tearing in the background. “Oh, I know!” Gaara hears Lee snap his fingers. “What’s your favorite kind of chocolate?”

Gaara is caught a little off guard. He pauses for a moment in thought. His only real experience with chocolate has been noticing that imports of it tend to rise sharply in the winter months. 

“I … don’t know,” he says, finally. “I don’t eat many sweets. And chocolate doesn’t keep well in the heat.”

“You don’t _know_?” Lee sounds scandalized. “Gaara, you have to- “

The 15 second warning buzzer sounds and Lee gets cut off.

“We have to hang up,” Lee says, voice already sounding slightly teary.

“I’ll see you soon, Lee,” Gaara says, pressing the phone a little more firmly to his ear. It’s silly, but he feels just a bit closer like this. 

“Take care, Gaara!” Lee’s voice grows faint. “I can’t wait to see you!” 

“Take care, Lee,” Gaara says, just before the line goes dead.

* * *

The day before he leaves for Konoha, Gaara corners Kankuro in his workshop. It probably would have made more sense to raise this topic with Temari, given that she spends the most time in Konoha of the three of them, but Kankuro had told him that he could always come talk to him about ‘guy stuff’. Given that Lee is a guy, and Gaara is a guy, this certainly seems to fall within the realm of 'guy stuff'. 

“Kankuro, what do you know about Valentine’s Day?” he asks, while he hands his brother a tiny screwdriver.

“I dunno, man, what do you wanna know about it?” Kankuro says. He’s got a mouth full of nails, so it comes out more like ‘I’unno’an, whayya wan’no a’ouh ih?’, but Gaara gets the gist. 

“Lee said it was ‘romantic’,” Gaara says, a tone of faint urgency in his voice. 

“I mean, I guess, but isn’t it supposed to be a chick thing?” Kankuro wipes grease off his hands onto his jumpsuit legs and spits a spray of nails into a metal tray with a clatter. Gaara winces - it’s so unsanitary.

“Chick thing?” Gaara’s brow furrows. Lee had not mentioned poultry during their conversation.

“No, oh my god,” Kankuro says, fiddling with some kind of elaborate contraption in Black Ant’s abdomen. “Chicks, as in girls? Like, the girls are supposed to make a bunch of chocolates and give them to the guy they like? Something like that.”

“Oh…” Gaara says. “Then why would Lee- ?”

“Yeah, see, that’s what I don’t get,” Kankuro interrupts. “You’re both dudes, so I don’t see why it’s a big deal.”

“We are … both dudes,” Gaara says at length.

“Ugh,” Kankuro grunts dramatically.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t say ‘dudes’, it’s so weird.”

“But you just said it- “

“Yeah, but it freaks me out when _you_ say it,” Kankuro says, shutting the puppet’s casing with a flourish.

“So you don’t think Lee is expecting anything special?” Gaara presses, ignoring the comment.

“Nah, he’s probably just all worked up over it because he’s an emotional guy, y’know? Don’t stress about it too much.”

Gaara feels his shoulders loosen. Lee is, indeed, an emotional person. He’s probably just enamored of the romantic nature of the holiday, that’s all. Kankuro’s right, it’s nothing to worry about.

“Thank you for the advice,” Gaara says, a bit awkwardly. 

“Don’t sweat it,” Kankuro says, shouldering his puppet. “Now, you wanna watch me take this baby for a spin?”

* * *

Gaara lingers outside the door to Lee’s small apartment. Through the door, he can hear a faint female voice.

“...’s Day is a bunch of heterosexist dreck!”

“So, Neji didn’t like your chocolates?” There’s Lee’s voice - muffled but unmistakably his. Gaara presses a little closer to the door, inclines his head to hear him better. He doesn’t want to eavesdrop - that’s rude, he knows - but he doesn’t want to interrupt what sounds like an important conversation either.

“No!” There’s the slamming of a fist against a table. “He said he was ‘watching his sugar intake,’ can you believe that?” The tone is mocking, a little exaggerated.

“I’m sorry, Tenten, I know you worked hard on those.” Lee’s voice is thoughtful and soothing. Gaara wants to be in that room so badly, but he forces himself to wait. He’s waited this long, what’s a few more minutes?

“Oh no, there’s more. So then he offers them to Kiba, right?”

“Did Kiba like them at least?”

“That’s the worst part! He turned them down, too. Because ‘dogs can’t have chocolate!’” Tenten’s voice is becoming increasingly loud and agitated.

“But… Kiba isn’t a dog.”

“It’s because he lets Akamaru lick the inside of his mouth, Lee.”

There is a long, silent pause, then: “... Ew.”

Gaara takes this as his cue to knock. In an instant, Lee is throwing the door wide open with an excited cry of, “Gaara!”

“Hello, Lee,” Gaara manages to get out, before he’s swept up into a bone-crushing hug. The sand in the gourd at his waist rattles a bit, threateningly, but then settles. Gaara brings his hands up to return the embrace. His ribs creak faintly in protest, but Lee is so warm. He feels solid, like a safe harbor at the end of a long journey. Gaara presses his face to Lee’s shoulder and lets his eyes drift closed.

“I guess I should head out,” Tenten says from somewhere behind Lee. She shoulders past the couple at the door and catches Gaara’s eye with a wink. “I’m glad at least _someone_ gets to enjoy their Valentine’s Day,” she says, striding out into the hallway. 

Lee shuts the door behind her and pulls Gaara all the way inside, never quite letting go of the hug. He buries his face into Gaara’s hair with a sigh.

“You smell good,” Lee says.

“I just ran across the desert for three days and haven’t had the chance to shower,” Gaara replies drily.

Lee hums in response, nosing around a bit more. “You still smell good to me. I think I might like the smell of your sweat - is that weird? I’m sorry if that’s weird.”

Gaara huffs a laugh. If he’s being honest with himself, he likes the way Lee smells, too, even after he’s been training all day. So, it’s probably fine, he thinks, and he says as much.

Lee laughs. He has a beautiful laugh - loud and sharp and clear. Gaara’s heart rate picks up; his pulse drums a little bit faster through his veins. After a long moment, Lee lets go and steers him into the kitchenette.

Lee’s apartment is a simple affair - sparsely decorated, without much in the way of knick knacks or ornaments, but well-lit by a large picture window at the back of the main room. Through it, Gaara can see the top of the Christmas cactus, growing tall and strong on Lee’s tiny balcony. He turns to Lee, beaming and effusive as ever, and cracks a small smile. 

Lee sits him down at the small kitchen table, its rough, scarred wood mostly obscured by a massive red box. When Lee sits down in the chair across from him, Gaara has to crane his neck to see more than the top of his head. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Lee says enthusiastically. “Are you ready for your present?”

“Present?” Gaara says. His heart sinks. He must have gotten this all wrong. Lee was obviously expecting something more out of this holiday. He should leave right away, run down to the market and find a gift that Lee would appreciate. Reciprocation is an important part of being in a relationship, and Gaara has just failed at it. And on an obviously important occasion, too. Honestly, whatever gift he picked up probably wouldn’t be good enough anyway, seeing as how it would be an afterthought. Lee would definitely know that Gaara came up with it at the last minute; he’d probably be heartbroken that Gaara hadn’t thought of him. He should leave right now and go back to Suna; there’s no recovering from a misstep of this magnitude.

Lee’s brows furrow over the box.

“Is everything all right?” he asks.

“Kankuro said … “ Gaara falters. It’s really not fair to blame his brother for his own mistake. He should have sought better information from a more reliable source. “I thought … that this was a holiday for women. Where women give chocolate to the men that interest them. Since we’re both men, I assumed…” He trails off.

Lee jumps to his feet with a grin. 

“You’re not wrong!” he says, waving his hands in a gesture that’s likely intended to be reassuring but mostly just looks frantic. “But, _because_ neither of us are women, we have a little more freedom in how we celebrate! So I thought it would be nice to do something for you, since you were going to be here. I know you don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day in Suna, but I was helping Tenten make her chocolates, and, well - “ 

Lee unties the massive red bow holding the box together. The sides fall down to reveal tiers upon tiers of chocolates, all beautifully moulded and faintly shining. There are tiny dark bonbons with painted designs in reds and golds, milk chocolate seashells with crenellated edges, white chocolate squares with dark centers, even chocolate spheres coated in green tea powder. 

Gaara can’t do anything but stare. He feels his mouth drop open around a gasp; it takes more effort than he’d like to force it closed again.

“You … made all these?” he says at length.

“Oh, gosh, no!” Lee’s ears turn faintly pink. “I tried to make my own with Tenten, but she tasted one and said they were ‘an affront to God and all of ninja-kind’, so I threw them out and went to the store instead.”

“This is too much,” Gaara says.

“Is it?” Lee’s starting to turn pink across the bridge of his nose, too. “I thought it was just the right amount. You said you didn’t know what kind of chocolate you liked, so I figured … why not try all of them? That way, I know what to get you next time.”

Gaara’s pulse flutters at his wrist, throbs faintly in his throat. He feels his face getting hot in turn.

“Lee, I don’t know what to say.” His throat is clogged with emotion. A million thoughts race through his mind but he can’t put words to any of them. Meanwhile, Lee just stands there blushing, an uncertain smile on his face. 

Finally, Gaara regains his ability to speak. “Thank you,” he says. The words are a bit clumsy in his mouth; they don’t feel like nearly enough in the face of what Lee has just given him: not just the chocolates, but his affection and his thoughtfulness and his care, too. 

“You’re welcome!” Lee says, a bit too loud for their close quarters. “I really, really like you, Gaara.”

“I like you too,” Gaara says. Again, the words don’t feel like quite enough. “A lot.” 

Lee rounds the table and grabs one of Gaara’s hands in his. Lee’s hands are large, rough and calloused; the bandages grate against Gaara’s skin but he’s never felt more safe, more appreciated. Lee’s eyes are shining, with unshed tears or the light from the kitchen window, Gaara can’t be sure. He squeezes Lee’s hand and Lee squeezes his back, the pressure firm and reassuring. 

“So, are you going to eat one?” he asks.

Gaara would rather sit here and stare at Lee for a bit longer, but he supposes he should at least try one chocolate. He carefully peruses the selection and finally picks one - a dark-chocolate-coated square with an elegant grainy swirl across the top. It’s a bit large, deceptively heavy for its size, so he bites it in half. The chocolate shell breaks between his teeth and something sticky oozes out.

“Lee, ‘ere’s som’ing innit,” Gaara mumbles, his mouth half-open and the mystery substance dribbling onto his chin. 

Lee laughs again, his thumb coming up to wipe the corner of Gaara’s mouth.

“That’s caramel, Gaara,” he says, his eyes crinkling with mirth. “Have you really never had it before?” 

Gaara manages to close his mouth just as Lee pops his thumb into his own. Gaara wishes he could chase that taste between Lee’s lips, rather than his own, but he resigns himself to chewing thoughtfully instead.

“How is it?” Lee asks, leaning forward eagerly.

Now that he’s gotten over his initial surprise, he finds that the chocolate is … really good, actually. A little bit sweet for his tastes, but the texture is smooth and the taste of the cacao follows the initial sweetness with a satisfying bitterness. When he pops the other half into his mouth, licking the remaining caramel from his fingers, he realizes there’s another taste there, too, something faintly salty. 

Lee is staring at him with a wide-open expression, his face thoroughly red. 

“It’s good,” Gaara says. “Salty. I like it.”

Lee seems to take a moment to collect himself, his mouth opening and closing a few times. “Oh, that must be one of the sea salt caramels,” he says, finally. 

“Do you want one?” Gaara offers. “This is too many for me to eat by myself. And I feel bad that I didn’t get you anything.”

“It’s fine!” Lee says, pulling his chair around to Gaara’s side of the table so they can sit side-by-side, shoulders bumping and pinkies clinging to one another. He wraps his ankle around Gaara’s as he pops a caramel into his mouth, too. “Besides,” he says with his mouth full, “you can make it up to me on White Day.”

Gaara pales. Another holiday that he doesn’t understand at all. He can only hope that he doesn’t screw it up nearly as badly as he has this one. 

Lee nudges him with his shoulder and leans in to whisper: “Don’t look so shell-shocked, I’m only joking.”

He leans in and cups Gaara’s face in one hand, bringing their lips together. The kiss is soft, hesitant at first, but Gaara presses closer, leans in to capture more of Lee’s mouth. He brings up both hands to hold Lee’s face still, pouring every ounce of affection and every feeling that he doesn’t have the words to say into the action. If the equal fervor with which Lee returns the kiss means anything, the message is coming through loud and clear. 

After several kisses ( _with tongue_ ), Gaara discovers that he likes the taste of chocolate even more when it’s on Lee.

**Author's Note:**

> I think a lot of anime fans are aware of the customs of Valentine's Day and White Day in Japan (Valentine's Day is when women give chocolate to men, and White Day is when men return the favor to women they have romantic feelings for), but I wasn't really sure what same sex couples did to celebrate the holiday, since the customs are fairly heteronormative (thank you, comrade Tenten). I did a little bit of research as I was planning this fic, and as it turns out, the answer is "pretty much whatever the hell they want", so that's what I decided to do here. 
> 
> A little extra fun fact, some gay couples in Japan refer to the holidays as "Valentine's Gay" and "White Gay".


End file.
